Brett Mason's Brett Bugle

December 2005 Archives

You are in the Brett Bugle archives right now. The HOMEPAGE is much more important.

2005-12-31category: BRETT

"Hate it or love it, the underdog's on top, and I'm gonna shine, homey, until my heart stop. Go ahead, envy me. I'm rap's MVP, and I ain't goin' nowhere, so you can get to know me."

If you are in my family, or if you've been reading my website entries for the past year, then you have already gotten to know me. For the rest of you, I offer you this 2005 year in review.

In January, Ariana solved two big problems for me: (1) she showed me how to remove that dang floral border in my dining room, the one which had been stubbornly stuck up there for years, and (2) she included me in an event which was filmed by WKYT, garnering me the television airtime I so desperately crave.

In February, I didn't do much or accomplish much. But I did have a good time on Edisto Island, especially when Mom, Dad, Grandma, and I played bocce in the living room of our timeshare condo.

March was awesome, bringing three important new introductions my way. First, I was introduced to my new boss and new programming job — and several seasons of massive prosperity. Second, I was introduced to Ana, a lovely Mexican woman who became my girlfriend for a while. Third, Rochelle introduced me to Quest Community Church, a place where ballet, pop music, and church collide. Like I said, March was darn good.

In April, I stayed very busy with dating and programming.

May had a lot of random adventures which don't lend themselves to a good annual review. In programming news, however, I am proud of the work I did for my boss and for my friend Matece. I'm also proud of myself for adding RSS/XML to this website in May.

June can be summarized by the words "guests" and "dancing." My guests included Contra dancers who came to town for the Dance Trance event, as well as my Mom and her cat. The Mom visit was ultra-memorable, wow. Once she got back to Florida, I de-stressed and recovered by attending downtown dances like Swingin' on Main and the Thursday Night Live series.

July was about getaways. In the beginning of the month, Shannon Arnold and her family invited me to go sailing with them on Cave Run Lake. Fantastic! Then, in the middle of the month, I took a little trip down to Florida to return Mom's cat to her. Semi-fantastic!

In August, my life was soooo empty and boring and lonely and depressing. But occasionally something good would happen, like when I got a photograph published on the cover of a magazine, so the month wasn't a total loss. Another good thing about having no one to see and nowhere to go is that you don't waste a lot of money on gasoline that costs 3 dollars a gallon.

September was soooo much better than August, with more work and more excitement. Salina took me to a fancy awards event. My company bought me a cell phone. Danny got married, and I had a blast dancing with his mom. September is a big birthday month in my address book, too: my boss, my ex-girlfriends, my confidante, they all age a full year in this one month.

In October, Rochelle took me to a wedding in Ohio, and we had an okay time as she realized we could never go anywhere together again. Then some more equally interesting stuff happened in October. Curious? No, didn't think so. I don't think anyone is actually reading this far into the entry. You all clicked the link on the word June and left the homepage far far behind.

November! I quit the band! And I walked around Louisville with Rachel! Danielle helped me meet and pursue Erin! Then I went to Memphis for Thanksgiving! But the most important thing is that I ran for president in the George Bush recall election and defeated Hillary Clinton by a ratio of 66 to 1. Are you reading this?

As far as December is concerned, I know you can read the entries below, so that becomes "an exercise for the reader," as they say. Have fun with that.

2005-12-27category: LIFE

Took a little trip to Florida to see my parents because my latest girlfriend broke up with me before I got a chance to go to Alabama to meet her parents. The reason I drove down instead of flying is that I like having the freedom to pack as much as I want and make my own schedule. I also like listening to all my custom CDs and singing along with songs like Céline Dion's "Je Danse Dans Ma Tête" as they tell me "l'avenir est planétaire. Y a six milliards d'humains sur terre, mais chacun vit sa vie en solitaire. Chacun dans ses habitudes, chacun avec ses certitudes, et l'amour est la pire des solitudes."

As an added bonus, the drive through KY, TN, NC, SC, GA, and FL has a lot of variety, taking me through the cities and the country, the mountains and the beaches, and the tunnels and the bridges. I sure do like abusing I-75, I-40, I-26, and I-95.

Dec 22: drove the entire way in one day, with no overnight stops in South Carolina as is my usual custom.

Dec 23: got to see Mom and Dad and Cheryl and Cheryl's guy. What a happy time. Of course, I took lots of pictures.

Dec 24: got to see Daytona Beach and the Atlantic Ocean, and then I got to see Grandma and Uncle Dan and Aunt Pegi.

Dec 25: here's a big shocking Christmas surprise — it's one of the two biggest days on the Christian calendar, and this year Christmas is a Sunday, and Mom did not require me to attend church with her. Unbelievable! And at the same time, relaxing! Thanks, Mom.

Dec 25 (continued): Mom and I had dinner at IHOP, which is always a thrill for me because there are no IHOPs in Kentucky. Dad missed out because he had to work.

Dec 26: split my trip home into two parts. Today, the trip took me to Spartanburg SC (including a lunch break at Savannah Mall in Savannah GA), where I spent the night at the downtown Marriott and played the grand piano in their conference area for an hour. Had to do that for entertainment because they had already closed their pool for the winter, and they don't have free wireless Internet, the bums.

Don't call to ask me any computer questions for the next seven days. I'm going to my parents' house in Florida for Christmas, starting today. I need to get away from the cold Kentucky weather and the cold Kentucky women.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas!

2005-12-19category: WEBSURF

Made a discovery recently which really cheers me up and keeps me from wallowing in heartbreak. You need to know about this right away!

Inside the latest BitComet program, the user is able to pick and choose which individual files he wants to download inside a large multi-file BitTorrent package. This is big news, big big news.

Let's say you are a fan of the actress Bellamy Young, pictured here. Her profile on IMDB says that she was in an episode of The Drew Carey Show, in the fifth season. Now, you're not a fan of this show, but you want to see her performance. With a torrent search engine, you can easily find the entire fifth season of The Drew Carey Show available as one huge package, and with the new BitComet, you can easily choose to download the single episode that features Ms. Young, saving you incredible amounts of both time and disk space.

Know what else this does for you? This feature allows you to reach into torrents of entire albums and only grab the one track that you like. Bingo bango! More time and disk space saved.

I can't tell you how pleased I am to have learned this recently. The first thing I did when I found out was to grab individual episodes of Mythbusters from inside overgrown Mythbusters full-season torrents. Try it. Live it. Love it.

2005-12-19category: BRETT

The past few days have had a great supply of good times and a good supply of bad times. Where do I begin? I reckon I'll do this in a day-by-day fashion.

16 Dec - good times at the company Christmas party in Newport KY. I took lots of pictures so that my coworkers can always remember how drunk they got. The only alcoholic beverage I had all night was "scotch and milk" — I got it because everyone around me wanted me to get a drink, and I've always been curious about that particular drink. It is nasty.

17 Dec - good times at three Christmas parties that Danielle took me to. First party had excellent barbecue meatballs. Second party had excellent chat with Jeorg of the UK French department. Third party had digital cable, including Saturday Night Live.

18 Dec - bad times in dream time, when I had that recurring nightmare again about having my car towed. Bad times at Erin's apartment; she finalized her decision not to date me (which had been a rollercoasting, tentative decision before today). Bad times at the bowling alley, when I smacked a 14-pound ball firmly into my ankle and was in so much pain that I had to crawl outside and lay on the cold sidewalk for 10 minutes.

18 Dec (continued) - good times at Hamburg Pavilion shopping center with Danielle; we shopped at Target, and we had holiday milkshakes at Steak & Shake.

2005-12-16category: SOCIAL

Big day today. I'm in the middle of a 5-day weekend, and in early evening I'll be attending my company's Christmas party in Cincinnati.

Another reason I'm pretty stoked about today is that the "Deal of the Day" in the Herald-Leader newspaper is a free game of bowling at Southland Lanes. Love getting something for nothing, yes.

2005-12-15category: BRETT

My niece called me twice in the past two days, since she thought for sure that I am depressed, based on my Dec 13 article. In our chat I explained that I'm fine but confused and cold.

Then Rachel knocked me down with this little piece of info: her mom, my oldest sister, does not know my home phone number. Say what?? I have had the same number for 10 years! It's not unlisted — I've been in the Lexington phone book for 10 years!

Maybe Rachel has just explained why churches and friends stop calling. My number is easy to lose and forget. And Lexington phone books are hard to find.

- - - - - - - - - -

UPDATE: While my phone number has been the same, the Lexington area code did change, so I suppose it's sorta understandable how my sister thought she had the wrong number recently.

2005-12-14category: NONE

So yesterday's entry (below) caused a little bit of a stir with my audience, prompting me to apply some white-out to it. Relax! I'm fine. Everything's great; I'm living the sweet life. I just get a little cuckoo when the weather's like this, and when women pitch curveballs at my head.

My house and heart need some warming up.

2005-12-13category: LIFE

If my Microsoft Outlook calendar is correct, today is Mom and Dad's anniversary. Happy anniversary to them. Wish I could be more excited about celebrating stuff like this, but I'm in a pretty bad state of mind right now.

People don't seem to connect as much as they used to. What is up with that? Why don't churches call to invite me back into their community, once I've stopped going after visiting them a few times? Why do women pretend to be happy to have me around when I'm around, but then when I'm not around, I never hear from them? Why does society expect me to be happy in solitary confinement?

On a completely unrelated subject, I am not sending cards this Christmas. I'm just not in the mood. I reckon the extended cold spell, with several 30-degree days in a row, is to blame.

2005-12-10category: FOOD

Alfalfa's, downtown, has put some really delicious chocolate chip pumpkin pancakes on their brunch menu, so Alfalfa's is now my new IHOP.

2005-12-09category: MONEY

Holy moley, the cost of living has just gone way up. I got my Columbia Gas bill yesterday, and I immediately noticed that the unit price for natural gas is now $15.35 per MCF. UNBELIEVABLE. Looking back through my archive of Columbia Gas bills, I can see that it used to be $4 or $5, gradually moving up through $8 and $9. But fifteen??? Sheesh. That ain't right.

Speaking of money, if you're looking for something cheap to get me for Christmas, get me a 2006 Entertainment Book (Lexington KY edition) or a 2006 Lexington Dining Club book. But if those are too expensive for ya, get me a 2006 Chick-Fil-A calendar. All of these items would be highly appreciated and frequently used throughout 2006, I guarantee it.

An even cheaper option is for you to give me your time and no money. I could seriously use your help in little home-improvement projects, stuff like painting the dining room, weatherproofing the windows in the master bathroom, or chopping down an overgrown honeysuckle bush in my front planter. I'm way too lazy to do this stuff by myself, but if you came around, it'd be like a party.

2005-12-08category: BRETT

I know, I know, you're tired of waiting for me to update my blog. Well, wait no more. Here is your precious update.

Dec 2 = gave blood and started my long visit with E.B.Dec 3 = all E.B. all day, wowDec 4 = nothing but E.B. and Fayette Mall and the Co-opDec 5 = Mom and I discussed our upcoming trip to the BahamasDec 6 and 7 = workdays, don't really want them but travel funds require themDec 8 = skipped work. went to Gattitown instead

Whatever you do, do not schedule anything for the last week of January. Instead, leave that week open for a trip to the Bahamas with me and Mom. Contact Mom or Dad for more details. Or, if your name is Rachel, change the previous references to "Mom or Dad" to "Grandma or Grandpa."

In other news, we had snow that stuck to the ground today! Lovely, so lovely. Want a lot more.

And in other Brett news, I will tell you about a recent dream I had, which you might find amusing. Here goes:

A big group of people (including me) sneaked into an indoor/outdoor movie. Jon Heder, the star of Napoleon Dynamite, was also there, and when I walked around the movie looking for a dropped ticket stub to hang onto, I saw Tara Ernst sitting by herself. I invited her to come over to my group and meet Jon Heder.